Its Not Even April 1st Yet

Irony – a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often wryly amusing as a result.

Taking the piss – taking the piss out of, which is an expression meaning to mock, tease, ridicule, or scoff.

The Guardian ran a story on Thursday that I came across yesterday and could not help wonder if it was April fools day already, in respect of the BBC I thought it was. You can decide, is it irony or plain old taking the piss?

It appears the BBC are to put together a team to fact check and debunk deliberately misleading and false stories masquerading as real news. Can I suggest they start with BBC Scotland at Pacific Quay, BBC News Chief James Harding was quoted saying “Where we see deliberately misleading stories masquerading as news, we’ll publish a Reality Check that says so. “And we want Reality Check to be more than a public service”. I had a real laugh at this, the Scottish and EU Referendums, any story about the SNP and about Jeremy Corbyn, social security and the impact of sanctions, Russia and Trump, the list is long as many of us know. Where will they find the time and will this ginormous extra work result in a hike in the TV tax.

This has come about as Ministers called media bosses in for talks on “accuracy” in journalism amid growing concern over the rise of fake news. Matt Hancock, the minister of state for digital and culture policy, has asked the UK newspaper industry to join round-table discussions about the issue.

This makes me think that the Tories are not happy that what they call fake news is of a high enough standard, I mean 45% of people in Scotland didn’t fall for their shit during the Indy Ref and 62% in the EU Referendum, they must be really worried that the BBC is just not doing a good enough job so they will have a chat with everyone, set up a new unit, say it’s going to check fake news when what they really mean is to demand the fake news is of a high enough standard of shit and propaganda.

You just could not make it up.

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4 comments

Yesterday (Saturday 14th) BBC R4 regurgitated the Guardian take on a Barnier meeting where they claimed financial services would get a “special deal” in Brexit. During the day, there was comment on Barniers site and in other news sources that the Guardian/BBC story was a complete and utter misinterpretation and that special deal was “special vigilance” – that it is more like special measures.

Last night, the BBC was still touting the Guardian line with a bit of waffling about possible misinterpretation. If I relied on the BBC for my news I would probably be under the illusion that the City of London was going to get some kind of special terms.

The fake news unit needs to begin work inside the BBC but they are talking about doing everything but that. The more they talk, the less I believe.

They are just a bunch of liars and manipulators, the British invented it. I would rather watch Fox News than anything on the BBC, most of the newspapers are just as bad, even the National has it’s moments with some of it;s headlines. We are so ill served in this country it is shameful, you can’t trust any of them and we have to resort to bloggs for discussion and Wings for truth. I haven’t seen the story you are talking about as I just rarely watch the BBC and I don;’t think it was ITV but then that can be just as bad at times.